Why aren't police using these Human Search Engines more often?

[jack]

I mean, they know computers, how to do research, and you don't need
probable cause to get them started on a project or to get search
warrants, and their results are admissable in court!!!
WTF? If this is legit, why aren't cops all over the country using
their services?

[theget]

There may be problems with the police asking someone to do these kinds
of searches. Once asked, I think the searcher becomes an agent of the
police and the same rules that apply to LEOs apply to them.

My understanding is, if a peeping tom looks in your window and sees
you committing a crime, the prosecution may use their testimony. If
the police ask someone to look in your window and that person sees you
committing a crime it's likely to be an unreasonable search or
otherwise inadmissible.

However, these are generalizations and they may not hold true in every
instance.

Also, IANAL.

Theget

[D.F. Manno]

In article
<d99b2cc3-522a-4eb0...@g1g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>,
theget <the...@bigmailbox.net> wrote:

In addition, using this "human search engine" in the ep was a Hail Mary
pass. In most crimes, they would be useless.

--
D.F. Manno | dfm...@mail.com
"Faith is a cop-out. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by
faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits."
(Dan Barker, former preacher, musician, b. 1949)

[Hunter]

In article <cc2d0cc2-c829-45ec-8d2c-
dd4a5b...@g23g2000vbr.googlegroups.com>, jrs9...@gmail.com
says...

---
If the police ask third parties to do it the third parties becomes
police agents and they will be subject to the same laws and rules of
evidence the cops themselves are under. If you don't do that the cops
would have civilians doing their dirty work right and left.
--
----->Hunter

"No man in the wrong can stand up against
a fellow that's in the right and keeps on acomin'."

-----William J. McDonald
Captain, Texas Rangers from 1891 to 1907